


your problem is my solution

by SummerJay



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alfie thinking about things, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24702022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerJay/pseuds/SummerJay
Summary: Tommy comes to Margate but never stays. Until one time, accidentally, he (probably) does.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	your problem is my solution

Tommy is never invited to stay the night whenever an east wind or his own fucking itch for running brings him to Margate. There simply isn’t a place for him here, yeah. The couch is always occupied with Cyril, panting heavily in the thick, hot summer air and drooling on the blanket, his large form taking up all the space so surely and innocently even Alfie doesn’t have the heart to nudge him to the side. There is no guest room either, it would be too fucking unsettling for a dead man to have one. As for Alfie’s bedroom, well. He cannot fathom why that would even remotely fit as an option.

So the normal proceeding of this is Tommy sinking into one of the large puffy chairs in the living room and chain smoking for an hour or two. This is when they speak. Or, rather, Alfie speaks, while Tommy stares at the window but never through it and flicks his thumb against the tip of the cigarette restlessly, as if completely oblivious to how it hooks Alfie’s gaze and drags it all the way from his long fingers to his lips to his half-lidded eyes that he flutters closed for a second against the smoke.

And it’s a fucking sight, alright, that man’s whole being, magnetic in how broken it is. How he holds his chin high and succeeds sometimes—through sheer defiance—in looking like there’s something left behind those cold eyes. Alfie’s hungry to observe it. Curious. It’s all there is.

So Tommy smokes, and they talk, and then Alfie goes to get himself a cuppa and a few fucking specs of reason along with it. By the time he comes back with a steaming mug, Tommy usually has one foot out the door already. Never the one to wait around for someone to want his company.

Alfie never stops him. Thomas does carry some intellectual appeal, that much Alfie admits. But it’s got dark long ago, and he’s not appealing enough for Alfie to desecrate his carefully crafted heaven with anything that might transpire if the offer is ever voiced. They’re not friends. They’re not even fucking. So, Alfie concludes, there is no tangible reason to offer.

He expects the house to be utterly void of Tommy when he comes back from the kitchen this time, the soothing smell of herbs from the mug slowly misting the room. But Tommy is still there. He’s still sprawled on the chair, with his head lolled to the side, nestled between his shoulder and the cushioned corner of the backrest. Alfie watches for a few endless seconds how his chest rises and falls in a calm rhythm.

Tommy mutters something in his sleep, barely a whisper. His index finger is twitching a little where his right hand rests limply on the pack of cigarettes. Too out of it to hear Alfie set the mug gently down on the table between their chairs and open one of the drawers.

Alfie stares at the gun for a long contemplative minute. It’s loaded and ready, still warm from his seagull demolition activities, right, metaphorically speaking, because he doesn’t really shoot birds anymore on these far-between days when Tommy visits. Because they’re not friends, and they’re not fucking. And Alfie has no business staying in one room with Tommy Shelby with his gun empty.

He could just shoot him now. Right this second. That would be easy.

But then he wouldn’t get to observe how Tommy twitches in his sleep, completely fucking polar to his monumental stiffness during the waking hours, stripped of all that blunt sharpness he carries around like warning sign. There _must_ be something broken in him, Alfie muses. The man just can’t stay the fuck still.

It’s a decision that makes itself when Alfie closes the drawer, careful not to slam it, and shoves the gun into his belt, padding up the stairs.

The living room is almost out of view when a rough voice calls quietly, “Alfie?”

Alfie pauses.

“‘s fucking black outside, mate. You’re welcome to fuck off whenever.”

He doesn’t wait for more words but they don’t come anyway. Perhaps, Tommy’s noticed the blanket tossed carelessly onto the tabletop. Or perhaps he’s sitting there, blinking in confusion, as Alfie imagines he would, trying to process what the fuck’s just happened.

Alfie sits on the edge of the bed and slips the gun under the pillow.

As far as he’s concerned, that chair falls miraculously out of the problematic territory, with it not being either the couch or Alfie’s fucking bed. So, being a man of manners and hospitality, Alfie won’t wake a guest up just to shoo him away.

Whatever Tommy does with that wordless demonstration of Alfie’s generous character, it’s his fucking problem now.

Alfie pulls the blanket up and feels for the gun. He listens carefully despite himself; it’s just a healthy professional paranoia by now, innit. 

But through all those minutes he spends slowly drifting off, the front door never opens.


End file.
